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Scientists may have found a way to eliminate chromosome linked to Down syndrome

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Re: Scientists may have found a way to eliminate chromosome linked to Down syndrome

#171

Post by wonderwonder »

vtbassmatt wrote: post #165
wonderwonder wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to live near a down syndrome living facility. Essentially a house converted into a care facility in a neighborhood. ~8 - 10 people with downs lived there. Very few visitors (parents), almost all the cars belonged to the nurses. Isolated from everyone they lived around and kept away from the neighbors (I'm sure to the neighbors relief). required constant care. I don't think its a life most would choose.

If you never interacted with the residents there, how are you so sure it was so bad? Nevermind the people in the group home — on what basis did you acquire the belief that the neighbors were “relieved” not to interact with them? Maybe you’re right and this situation was terrible for everyone. Is this arrangement required? Is it the best we can do? I don’t think most people would choose to live a life with many common…

I was a neighbor... I was friends with the neighbors. I literally lived across the street from the home. I'm sure the nursing staff was nice and they got as great a life as one could have in a group home. I never claimed having downs invalidated anyone's existence, I simply stated that I don't think its a condition anyone would willingly desire if given an alternative.

Also they had an ambulance or fire truck there at least once every couple months.

Re: Scientists may have found a way to eliminate chromosome linked to Down syndrome

#172

Post by lincon127 »

ghurtado wrote: post #99
puppycodes wrote: post #10

Interesting, I wonder what else this might lead too! Encouraging we might be getting somewhere. I used to live near a Down syndrome center where a bunch of folks lived and I remember this one lady who was kitted out with Britney Spears everything, lunchbox, t-shirt, hat, and headphones. Everyday I passed by the bus stop she would be dancing her heart out to a Britney track waiting for the bus and it made my world a l…

See, it's stories like this one that make me really question just how ethical it is to completely eliminate Down's from the gene pool. I understand it's the correct medical and scientific thing to do, it's just that it sometimes feels a little bit like eugenics for me.

It is eugenics, I just don't see how that's a problem. Eugenics isn't inherently bad, you're just thinking of bad eugenics.

Re: Scientists may have found a way to eliminate chromosome linked to Down syndrome

#173

Post by advisedwang »

smeej wrote: post #125
zarzavat wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Some bioethics experts are concerned I do have to wonder what goes on in the minds of these people. My sister-in-law has a child with Down's syndrome and the situation basically ruined her life. She can no longer work, so they now struggle on a single income, if her husband were to leave her she would be completely screwed. To what end is that in the continuance of ethics?

Many ethicists value the continuation of someone's--anyone's--(literal) life over the continuation of anyone else's life style. I'm not arguing whether you should or shouldn't agree with them, nor saying anything about in which cases. It's just one of the primary things going on in the minds of those people, and you said you wondered.

Down screening is done at like 16 weeks. At 16 weeks that's hardly a life.

Also you are being very dismissive by hand-waving away lifestyle. Quality of life is a significant factor in medical decisions. Many people choose short high-qol lives over longer low-qol lives.

Re: Scientists may have found a way to eliminate chromosome linked to Down syndrome

#174

Post by dang »

123yawaworht456 wrote: post #40
gerdesj wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As soon as someone starts ascribing towards a "normal" and using the pronoun "them", warning bells should go berserk.

The heresy of heresies was common sense.

We've banned this account for using HN primarily for ideological battle. Regardless of ideology, that's not allowed here. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

p.s. This isn't a response to this particular comment, but to the account's overall pattern of behavior, which is way over the line.

Re: Scientists may have found a way to eliminate chromosome linked to Down syndrome

#175

Post by advisedwang »

kulahan wrote: post #97
zarzavat wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Some bioethics experts are concerned I do have to wonder what goes on in the minds of these people. My sister-in-law has a child with Down's syndrome and the situation basically ruined her life. She can no longer work, so they now struggle on a single income, if her husband were to leave her she would be completely screwed. To what end is that in the continuance of ethics?

Because it's a form of eugenics, however far down the spectrum it may be. edit: I mean to imply here that the overton window is shifted, basically.

It's not eugenics, because Down syndrome is not inherited. There is no Down's genes to eliminate. Terminating down syndrome babies doesn't reduce the rate of Down syndrom in the next generation, and nobody is doing it for that goal.

Re: Scientists may have found a way to eliminate chromosome linked to Down syndrome

#176

Post by derektank »

kulahan wrote: post #97
zarzavat wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Some bioethics experts are concerned I do have to wonder what goes on in the minds of these people. My sister-in-law has a child with Down's syndrome and the situation basically ruined her life. She can no longer work, so they now struggle on a single income, if her husband were to leave her she would be completely screwed. To what end is that in the continuance of ethics?

Because it's a form of eugenics, however far down the spectrum it may be. edit: I mean to imply here that the overton window is shifted, basically.

Correcting what is essentially a developmental defect (albeit a defect that occurs in the germ cells rather than in the womb) isn't eugenics. It's not caused by any genes carried by the parents, it's caused by a failure in the development process, specifically meiosis. Would preventing fetal alcohol syndrome be eugenics? It's caused by changes in gene expression from alcohol exposure after all.

Re: Scientists may have found a way to eliminate chromosome linked to Down syndrome

#177

Post by thaumasiotes »

derektank wrote: post #9
moomoo11 wrote: post #4

I don't really understand what it says. As a layman in this topic, I'm curious if modifications like that can cause other effects?

It says that they've developed a way to identify the extra chromosome(s) passed to a child by a malfunctioning germ cell, specifically chromosome 21 though presumably this method could be reproduced for other trisomy diseases. This could, most immediately, lead to a therapy that allows a couple that is going through in vitro fertilization to repair a zygote that has trisomy by correcting the number of chromosomes it…

> specifically chromosome 21 though presumably this method could be reproduced for other trisomy diseases.

There's no point; other trisomies won't go to term. (Sex chromosomes are an exception, but also don't make the child nonviable.)

Re: Scientists may have found a way to eliminate chromosome linked to Down syndrome

#178

Post by School-Cotton »

labster wrote: post #66
School-Cotton wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US government is not one person or a small set of people with a coherent strategy making decisions based on cost-benefit analysis. It’s an extremely complex emergent system whose properties can only be understood by studying them empirically, not by appealing to arguments about what a human would think is worth it or would make sense.

Another statement that I would have simply accepted as fact a year ago, but now I believe is false. The US government is now primarily one person, and occasionally a small set of people, making cost-benefit decisions on what will benefit themselves more. The complex system is mostly gone, soon to be washed away, in favor of layers of patronage and favoritism. Much simpler.

That is not true. Lots of things Trump wants the government to do have not happened (random example: stopping the grant of birthright citizenship to the children of illegal immigrants and other non-permanent residents), precisely because he does not fully control it. Maybe he will someday, but he doesn’t yet.

Re: Scientists may have found a way to eliminate chromosome linked to Down syndrome

#179

Post by vtbassmatt »

nice_byte wrote: post #78
heavyset_go wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Willing to bet money that it will, there's a ton of investment right now in what I'd call blatant eugenics. There are companies right now making bank on embryo selection based on genetics, the next step is modifying genes instead of rolling a crap shoot and hoping to get what they want. Funnily enough, such companies are funded by and led by some HN subcultures' favorite people, I would know because I was recruited b…

preventing down syndrome is "eugenics"?

Yes.

Re: Scientists may have found a way to eliminate chromosome linked to Down syndrome

#180

Post by somenameforme »

mathieuh wrote: post #167
hilsdev wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re right the world is a lot more accepting. No matter how much things improve and how positive the trajectory though, there will be someone online who tells us it’s not enough

It didn’t just happen. It happened through struggle and its continuation is not guaranteed. Look at all the reactionary movements springing up around the world. This is not an area I believe we can settle on “good enough”.

I think societies somewhat naturally wax and wane on most topics, probably because it seems we're simply unable to maintain a middle ground on anything. We always end up taking things to an extreme which, regardless of what that extreme may be, tends to lead to unpleasant scenarios which causes society to start bouncing back in the opposite direction only to repeat the cycle in the equal but opposite direction some time later.

You can see this playing out in real time with religion which went from societies that were highly religious to secular to militantly anti-religious, and now gen-z is suddenly some ~400% more religious than previous generations. [1] The most interesting thing is that that's also a global trend, probably owing to the relative global homogenization of societies in many ways.

[1] - https://www.axios.com/2025/05/10/religious-young-people-chri...

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